It’s that time again…what time is that, you ask?  Could it be the U.S. April 15th Tax Deadline?  Spring Break?  Daylight Saving Time?  No, it’s not any of those.  But it is  the second Tuesday in April, which means it’s time for certain Microsoft products to reach the end of support. 

 

This time, Windows Vista with no service packs installed (sometimes referred to as RTM or SP0) will be reaching end of support on April 13th.  If you need a refresher of what this means, or what steps you need to take, I’d recommend reading through our February blog post on this subject.

 

Additionally, the Microsoft Support Lifecycle team recently announced important changes to the Service Pack Support policy.  I want to take a moment to clarify the details of this policy change and highlight some of the ways that this will improve the overall customer and partner experience.

 

Under the former Service Pack Support policy, when a service pack reached the end of support, customers were no longer eligible to receive troubleshooting help from Microsoft Customer Service and Support, including assisted telephone support, security updates, or non-security hotfixes.  Customers requiring assistance from Microsoft had to upgrade to a supported service pack to be eligible for any support.

 

We’ve received a lot of feedback on this policy from our customers and partners over the past few years.  Many customers asked for the ability to receive troubleshooting support from Microsoft on unsupported service packs, if the product itself is still in the Mainstream Support phase or Extended Support phase.  Their general opinion was that if they are experiencing issues, Microsoft should provide limited support or migration assistance for the unsupported service pack.

 

We’ve listened carefully to this feedback and, as a result, updated the Service Pack Support policy to provide customers with limited troubleshooting on unsupported service pack versions. 

 

So, what does “limited troubleshooting” actually mean?  The new Service Pack Support policy enables customers to obtain support as follows:

  1. Break/fix support incidents will be provided through Microsoft Customer Service and Support; and through Microsoft’s managed support offerings (such as Premier Support).
  2. There will be no option to engage Microsoft’s product development resources, and technical workarounds may be limited or not available.
  3. If the support incident requires escalation to development for further guidance, requires a hotfix, or requires a security update, customers will be asked to upgrade to a supported service pack.

The new policy will help to:

  • Improve customer satisfaction by providing access to support representatives who can respond to questions about support options for unsupported service packs.
  •  Ensure that customers have a consistent experience when contacting Microsoft for support on an unsupported service pack.
  • Provide additional support options and flexibility for customers who have not completed migration to a supported service pack.

Customers are highly encouraged to stay on a supported service pack to ensure they are on the latest and most secure version of their product.  This is especially important for those customers running business critical applications.  Staying on a supported service pack is the only way to ensure that you get continued access to security updates and the ability to escalate your support issues within Microsoft.

 

If you have any questions on these changes, feel free to ask them within the comments section.  We’ll do our best to answer them in a future blog posting.  In the meantime, I hope you have a good second Tuesday in April!  J

 

*This posting is provided "AS-IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*